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Broad Match Modifier: Should I use the + on the first keyword?

I am playing with Adwords and want to use the broad match modifier, however I see some examples always using the + in front of every keyword and some with with it on just the secondary keyword or more e.g.

3 Responses

i used the search term & "search terms" & [search term] in my adwords campaigns but never did i use the + sign. If you want to go broad use the "" and the [ ] modifiers. The same way it appears in Google Keyword Tool

I believe in the suggestions adwords makes by using the "" and [ ] modifiers and never seen the + sign modifier over there.

So what the plus does is enforce the word is used in the users query. For example, if you had:

+buy +widgets

buy +widgets

The first would enforce that both "buy" and "widgets" are in the query. This would match things like "buy cheap widgets", "buy widgets now", "i want to buy some widgets", etc.

The second would only enforce that "widgets" is in the query, and would allow Google to do broad matching against the word buy. The second could match the same queries as the first, but also additional queries like "purchase widgets", "get cheap widgets", "buying widgets", etc. Without the plus, Google can swap out the word "buy" for other similar words.

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